Educating the Public About Police Through Public Service Announcements in Lima, Ohio, 1995-1997 (ICPSR 2885)

Principal Investigator(s):Chamlin, Mitchell B., University of Cincinnati; Stormann, Christopher R., University of Cincinnati

Summary:

This study was designed to analyze the impact of four
televised public service announcements (PSAs) aired for three months
in Lima, Ohio. The researchers sought to answer three specific
research questions: (1) Were the PSAs effective in transferring
knowledge to citizens about the police? (2) Did the PSAs have an
impact on resident satisfaction with the police? and (3) Did the PSAs
have an impact on the behavior of citizens interacting with the
police? To assess public attitudes about the Lima police and to
determine whether the substan... (more info)

This study was designed to analyze the impact of four
televised public service announcements (PSAs) aired for three months
in Lima, Ohio. The researchers sought to answer three specific
research questions: (1) Were the PSAs effective in transferring
knowledge to citizens about the police? (2) Did the PSAs have an
impact on resident satisfaction with the police? and (3) Did the PSAs
have an impact on the behavior of citizens interacting with the
police? To assess public attitudes about the Lima police and to
determine whether the substance of the PSAs was being communicated to
the residents of Lima, three waves of telephone interviews were
conducted (Part 1). The first telephone interviews were conducted in
April 1996 with approximately 500 randomly selected Lima
residents. These were baseline interviews that took place before the
PSAs aired. The survey instrument used in the first interview assessed
resident satisfaction with the police and the services they
provided. After completion of the Wave 1 interviews, the PSAs were
aired on television for three months (June 5-August 28, 1996). After
August 28, the PSAs were removed from general circulation. A second
wave of telephone interviews was conducted in September 1996 with a
different group of randomly selected Lima residents. The same survey
instrument used during the first interviews was administered during
the second wave, with additional questions added relating to whether
the respondent saw any of the PSAs. A third group of randomly selected
Lima residents was contacted via the telephone in January 1997 for the
final wave of interviews. The final interviews utilized the identical
survey instrument used during Wave 2. The focus of this follow-up
survey was on citizen retention, over time, of the information
communicated in the PSAs. Official data collected from computerized
records maintained by the Lima Police Department were also collected
to monitor changes in citizen behavior (Part 2). The records data span
127 weeks, from January 1, 1995, to June 7, 1997, which includes 74
weeks of pre-PSA data and 53 weeks of data for the period during the
initial airing of the first PSA and thereafter. Variables in Part 1
include whether respondents were interested in learning about what to
do if stopped by the police, what actions they had displayed when
stopped by the police, if they would defend another person being
treated unfairly by the police, how responsible they felt (as a
citizen) in preventing crimes, the likelihood of calling the police if
they were aware of a crime, perception of crime and fear of crime, and
whether there had been an increase or decrease in the level of crime
in their neighborhoods. Respondents were also asked about the amount
of television they watched, whether they saw any of the public service
announcements and if so to rate them, whether the PSAs provided
information not already known, whether any of the PSA topics had come
up in conversations with family or friends, and whether the
respondent would like to see more PSAs in the future. Finally,
respondents were asked whether the police were doing as much as they
could to make the neighborhood safe, how responsive the police were to
nonemergency matters, and to rate their overall satisfaction with the
Lima Police Department and its various services. Demographic variables
for Part 1 include the race, gender, age, marital status, level of
education, employment status, and income level of each respondent.
Variables in Part 2 cover police use-of-force or resisting arrest
incidents that took place during the study period, whether the PSA
aired during the week in which a use-of-force or resisting arrest
incident took place, the number of supplemental police use-of-force
reports that were made, and the number of resisting arrest charges
made.

Access Notes

The public-use data files in this collection are available for access by the general public.
Access does not require affiliation with an ICPSR member institution.

Study Description

Citation

Chamlin, Mitchell B., and Christopher R. Stormann. EDUCATING THE PUBLIC ABOUT POLICE THROUGH PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENTS IN LIMA, OHIO, 1995-1997. ICPSR version. Cincinnati, OH: University of Cincinnati [producer], 1998. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], 2000. http://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR02885.v1

Universe:
Part 1: All households in Lima, Ohio. Part 2: Counts of
resisting arrest charges and police use-of-force incidents.

Data Types:
survey data, and administrative records data

Data Collection Notes:

The user guide, codebook, and data collection
instruments are provided by ICPSR as a Portable Document Format (PDF)
file. The PDF file format was developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated
and can be accessed using PDF reader software, such as the Adobe
Acrobat Reader. Information on how to obtain a copy of the Acrobat
Reader is provided on the ICPSR Web site.

Methodology

Study Purpose:
Community-oriented policing relies on a
partnership between the police and the public. Ideally, this
partnership should be an informed relationship wherein both parties --
the police and the public -- understand the needs and expectations of
the other. However, the public is rarely equipped with a clear
understanding of the police's role or of how to behave when involved
in a police-citizen encounter. Consequently, misunderstandings occur
that diminish the capacity of the public to form an effective
partnership with the police. Academics and law enforcement personnel
have emphasized training police officers to be empathic toward the
diverse elements accompanying the populations they serve. What had
been overlooked was the need to educate and make empathic the other
half of the partnership -- the public. This study sought to analyze
the impact of four televised public service announcements (PSAs) aired
for three months in Lima, Ohio. The PSAs were created with the goal of
educating the public about the police and informing citizens about how
to behave during encounters with the police. Moreover, the study
sought to answer three specific research questions: (1) Were the PSAs
effective in transferring knowledge to citizens about the police? (2)
Did the PSAs have an impact on resident satisfaction with the police?
and (3) Did the PSAs have an impact on the behavior of citizens
interacting with the police?

Study Design:
Researchers first conducted a focus group with the
Lima Police Department to determine which issues would be the center
of the public service announcements (PSAs). The Lima focus group
generated approximately 12 areas of police concern that officers
characterized as problematic. After careful review of the items
identified from the focus group, researchers selected four areas to
concentrate on for the PSAs: (1) helpful tips if you are pulled over,
(2) helpful tips for police emergencies, (3) helpful tips for
disturbances and disagreements with the police, and (4) the police
role and community-oriented policing. To determine whether the
substance of the PSAs was being communicated to the residents of Lima,
OH, three waves of telephone interviews were conducted (Part 1). The
first telephone interviews were conducted in April 1996 with
approximately 500 randomly selected Lima residents. These interviews
took place before the PSAs aired. The survey instrument used in the
first interviews assessed resident satisfaction with the police and
the services they provided. After completion of the Wave 1
interviews, the PSAs were aired on television for three months (June
5-August 28, 1996) with an average of three airings a day. After
August 28, the PSAs were removed from general circulation. The second
wave of telephone interviews was conducted in September 1996 with a
different group of randomly selected Lima residents. The same survey
instrument used during the first interviews was administered during
the second wave, with additional questions added relating to whether
the respondent saw any of the PSAs. The second wave of interviews
served two purposes. First, residents were asked questions concerning
knowledge about the four PSA topics and comparisons were made of these
levels of knowledge before and after the airings, using data from
Wave 1 as baseline data. Second, the interviews were used to
determine whether there was a relationship between any of the PSAs and
resident satisfaction with the police. A third group of randomly
selected Lima residents was contacted via the telephone in January
1997 for the final wave of interviews. The final interviews utilized
the identical survey instrument used during Wave 2. The focus of this
follow-up survey was on citizen retention, over time, of the
information communicated in the PSAs. Official data from Lima police
records were also collected to monitor changes in citizen behavior
(Part 2). The data span 127 weeks, from January 1, 1995, to June 7,
1997, which includes 74 weeks of data for the period prior to the
onset of the intervention and 53 weeks of data for the period during
the initial airing of the first PSA and thereafter. In addition,
weekly counts of resisting arrest incidents, supplemental reports of
police use-of-force, and charges of resisting an arrest were collected
from computerized records maintained by the Lima Police Department
during the study period.

Sample:
Simple random sampling.

Data Source:

telephone interviews and official police records

Description of Variables:
Variables in Part 1 include whether respondents
were interested in learning about what to do if stopped by the police,
what actions they had displayed when stopped by the police, if they
would defend another person being treated unfairly by the police, how
responsible they felt (as a citizen) in preventing crimes, the
likelihood of calling the police if they were aware of a crime,
perception of crime and fear of crime, and whether there had been an
increase or decrease in the level of crime in their
neighborhoods. Respondents were also asked about the amount of
television they watched, whether they saw any of the public service
announcements and if so to rate them, whether the PSAs provided
information not already known to them, whether any of the PSA topics
had come up in conversations with family or friends, and whether they
would like to see more PSAs in the future. Finally, respondents were
asked whether the police were doing as much as they could to make the
neighborhood safe, how responsive the police were to nonemergency
matters, and to rate their overall satisfaction with the Lima Police
Department and its various services. Demographic variables for Part 1
include the race, gender, age, marital status, level of education,
employment status, and income level of each respondent. Variables in
Part 2 cover the year that use-of-force or resisting arrest incidents
took place, whether the PSA aired during the week in which a
use-of-force or resisting arrest incident took place, the number of
supplemental police use-of-force reports that were made, and the
number of resisting arrest charges made.

Response Rates:
For Part 1, the three waves of interviews
(approximately 500 per wave) yielded a response rate of 64
percent. Part 2: Not applicable.

Presence of Common Scales:
Several Likert scales were used.

Extent of Processing: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of
disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major
statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to
these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:

Standardized missing values.

Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Version(s)

Original ICPSR Release:2000-12-04

Version History:

2006-03-30 File CB2885.ALL.PDF was removed from any previous datasets and flagged as a study-level file, so that it will accompany all downloads.

2005-11-04 On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one
or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well
as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable,
and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to
reflect these additions.